BBC News – Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich gather recordings on Skye

Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich gather recordings on Skye

Artists have recorded stories and sounds on Skye and Rona to later broadcast from a yacht decorated with 60,000 mirrored tiles.

Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich will broadcast from the Celeste while it lies off Portree on 10 September.

People will be able to listen on radios while they walk along paths on Skye.

There will also be a pop-up gallery, a pipe band, dance performances, a traditional boat building display and a ceilidh on the day.

The arts project has been called Bonnie Boat, Bata Breagha in Gaelic. Atlas, a new arts organisation on Skye, is involved.

The Celeste has previously toured the Kent coast.

Walker and Bromwich have also staged live arts performances at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, Modern Art Oxford and at Tate Britain.

‘Coated with foil’

In a separate arts project, Gairloch-based artist Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie and Indian artist Somu Desai are working to create an artwork for the Beinn Eighe nature reserve, near Kinlochewe, in Wester Ross.

Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie and Somu Desai working on their Beinn Eighe arts project

The project is a precursor to Ceangal – Gaelic for connection – an international collaboration to create a programme of international artists residencies that will take place in the Gairloch area from September 2012.

Mr Desai has travelled to Scotland for the first time to help organise and jointly lead Ceangal.

Ms Bennett-Mackenzie said she hoped local schoolchildren would be involved in creating the Beinn Eighe artwork.

She added: “For this first project, naturally-found objects will be coated with foil and installed in strategic positions around visitor trails so that people will seek them out or come across them, and consider about how nature can be manipulated and how the perception of it can be changed in a very simple manner.

“We are delighted with the positive responses we are getting from everyone.

“Scottish Natural Heritage have been very enthusiastic about what we are doing.”